68 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



liis voluntary, his unrestrained devoting of himself to the work of 

 redemption. No doubt can be reasonably entertained, that the burn- 

 ing of the red heifer did prefigure the sufferings and death of 

 Christ ; and the purifying efficacy of her collected ashes, mixed in 

 water, the cleansing energy of his blood ; for it is the blood of 

 Christ alone that cleanseth from all sin. But it is very doubtful 

 whether all these analogies existed. 



The grass of the field, and the young shoots, and leaves of the 

 forest, supply the ox with food, which he collects by a peculiar ac- 

 tion of his tongue, and devours in large quantities, with great rapid- 

 ity. The first circumstance is mentioned by the psalmist as an ad- 

 ditional aggravation in the grovelling idolatry of Israel : ' They 

 changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass*,' 

 Psalm cvi. 20. Disregarding the dictates of reason, which had 

 been planted in their bosoms by the inspiration of God. they ex- 

 changed the glorious manifestations or symbols of the Divine pre- 

 sence, with which they were still favored, into the form of an ox, 

 which their Egyptian oppressors had exalted to the rank of a god, 

 and absurdly worshipped ; a stupid and irrational animal, doomed 

 by his Maker to fix his brute countenance on the ground, to which 

 both his soul and body return, and to subsist on the coarsest fare. 



* To eat grass like an ox' (Dan. iv. 25), was a part of that signal 

 punishment which the Most High inflicted upon the proud and ty- 

 rannical king of Babylon, Deprived of reason, which he had so 

 greatly abused, and resigned to the full influence of bestial appetites, 

 he was hurled from his throne and dignity, and expelled from the 

 society of mankind, to roam naked in the open fields, exposed, like 

 the herd with which he associated, to all the inclemencies of the 

 heavens, and forced, like them, to feed on grass; a dreadful lesson 

 to the oppressors of every succeeding age. To the second circum- 

 stance, on the manner in which the ox collects his food, the quan- 

 tity which he devours, and the rapidity with which he eats down 

 the pasture, the king of Moab alludes in his address to the elders of 

 Midian, on the dangers to which their country was exposed from 

 the dreaded invasion of the Israelitish armies: 'And Moab said 

 unto the elders of Midian, Now shall this company lick up all that 

 are round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field,* 

 Numbers xxii. 4. 



Under the special care of Oriental husbandmen, the ox, in seasons 

 of plenty, was regaled with a mixture of chaffj chopped straw, and 

 various kinds of grain, carefully winnowed and moistened with 

 subacid water. Such is the meaning of that prediction : ' The oxen 

 likewise, and the young asses, that ear (till) the ground, shall eat clean 

 (or subacid) provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel 

 and with the fan,' Isaiah xxx. 24. When the Lord returns to bless 

 his repenting people, so rich and abundant shall be the produce of 

 their fields that the lower animals which toil in the service of man, 

 and have assigned for their subsistence the very refuse of the harvest 

 shall share in the general plenty, and feed on provender carefully sep- 



